Sylvanas Windrunner: A Family Reunion
by The Nickname
Summary: Sylvanas finally has the opportunity to exact her revenge against one who had wronged her in the past, but feels conflicting thoughts towards the final judgement. Rated Kplus for adult themes. Reviews are encouraged.


"We have found her for you, Dark lady. The traitor!"

Several guards marched through the winding corridor to their mistress' royal chambers, dragging a prisoner in tow. The guards had long since given up on the morality of life and have since embraced the savagery of undeath, so the pure stench and form of the prisoner they had recently captured repulsed them. They held her by her biceps and pulled her into the royal chamber, where sat a staircase leading to an occupied throne.

The Banshee Queen glared down at the perpetrator with her infamously cold stare, her red eyes glowing brightly within the darkness beneath her cowl. The prisoner in question had a black cloth draped over her head to prevent her sight, as well as a chance of recognising her location and potentially returning in the future. The Queen herself knew that she may have no need to concern herself with this possibility, as this prisoner may likely not leave this room to do so.

The prisoner was forced to her knees and bowed forward as the guards stood back to offer her space, all while the Banshee Queen continued to examine the prisoner. She looked over the prisoner's form and found it to be valiant and unspoilt, lacking any injuries prior to her capture and relocation, just as Sylvanas had hoped. She stood up from her seat and stepped forward, towering ominously over the prisoner with clearly sinister thought swirling through her head.

She slowly stalked down the steps that lead to her thrown, the clack of her heels echoing viciously throughout the chamber. Upon reaching the ground level, she stopped and slowly knelt before her prisoner, silently watching as the girl slightly trembled in subtlety. Her arm rose over the black cloth and was placed firmly upon the prisoner's head, who twitched in response from the sudden contact. In one quick motion, The Queen pulled the cloth from the prisoner's head and cast it aside, allowing the two to finally confirm the other's identity.

The two sisters reunite once again, but under vastly different circumstances.

"Guards… leave the chamber" Sylvanas commanded without even glancing away from her sister's terrified face, requiring only the sounds of footsteps gradually fading into the hallway to finally confirm their solitude. Her sister, Vereesa, hardly moved and simply stared into her sister's eyes. Sylvanas could see a wide variety of emotions that she could sense from those eyes; fear, guilt, panic, misery, pain, heartbreak, anger, repulsion, and eerily, preparation.

"Welcome to the Undercity, Sister. My own boudoir" Sylvanas whispered, her serpentine voice penetrating Vereesa's ears and filling her mind with terror. The undead elf stepped back from her captive and held her arms out in the air, intending to draw her sister's attention to the room they currently resided in. Vereesa's heart sank and her should began welling with discomfort and paranoia from the dark and ominous chamber, the decoration of skulls and the major absence of light beginning to affect her composure.

"This is where I spent my afterlife praying for my vengeance upon the butcher" Sylvanas described, "It's where I home the forsaken undead that the world shuns". Sylvanas gave a relaxed sigh to express a mild pleasure from her explanation, but a frown soon emerged on her lips. "It's also where I met treachery from my closest allies… too many times for me to signify any of them". Her arms dropped to her sides and shone her gaze upon her captive, concluding in a hushed tone "But only one treachery truly broke me… and possibly has for all eternity".

At that moment, nothing more needed to be said, as Vereesa immediately knew why she had been captured and brought so ungraciously before her sister. She had known that her sister would disapprove of her decision during the infamous Trial of Garrosh Hellscream, but could never have believed that a response of this magnitude had awaited her. Her actions likely affected Sylvanas more that she could presume, so she needed to tread carefully if she ever intended to leave and return to her children.

"I know I must've hurt you when I abandoned our plan, sister" she began with an attempted elegance in her tone, "And I know that Garrosh deserved so much more for his crimes". Sylvanas remained silent with expectation as Vereesa added "But was we wanted wasn't the way to bring justice to his actions". Sylvanas rose her eyebrow curiously as she questioned "As opposed to what? Allowing him the opportunity to continue to murder thousands of innocents?" Vereesa shook her head solemnly, answering "No. We need order in these dark times, Sylvanas. I'd never have forgiven myself if we allowed ourselves to fall into chaos as Garrosh had".

Sylvanas gritted her teeth as she rebutted "You're talking as if we were plotting to kill a man convicted of loitering" The Banshee Queen then clanged her fists in frustration as she continued "But this was Garrosh! A mass murderer and a tyrant that put the entire world in peril, all for nothing but spite!" Sylvanas turned away and began pacing around her captive in an attempt to vent her frustration, the latter hunching forwards to evade any stray contact with her captive,

"We had a chance, Vereesa! You gave us both that chance and you threw it all way!" Sylvanas spat viciously, "A second chance to gain justice against a tyrant that wronged us both!" Sylvanas clenched both her teeth and her fist in frustration as she yelled "Thousands died on Draenor, sister! All of them for a false cause that could have been prevented long ago!" She turned on her heel and pointed her finger towards the traitor and finally shouted "If you had kept your promise, none of these things would've happened!"

Vereesa could not help herself but to recollect all of the events that followed between the trial and the return of the burning legion. Garrosh's escape, the invasion of Draenor, the revival of Archimonde, the return of Gul'dan to the world of Azeroth, and possibly the return of the Burning Legion in an entirety; this disgrace of Azerothian history could've been prevented had she finally dispatched of that monstrous butcher.

"I couldn't've known that all of this would happen" Vereesa rebutted in an attempt to defend her position in all of this. But evident by Sylvanas's rage-filled eyes, she was not swayed. "Couldn't've known?!" Sylvanas snarled, "Did you really think that the chance of Garrosh living would bring anything other than chaos and tyranny?! The murderer of your lover and your children's father!? He roamed free because of your cowardice!"

In a fit of anger, Vereesa launched upwards and attempted to stand at Sylvanas' level, before she returned to her knees and winced in pain from the sudden collision. "I was thinking about my children!" Vereesa retorted despite the pain in her legs, "I could not keep the promise I made to you!" Vereesa bowed her head to avoid her sister's presence as much as she possibly could, concluding "I had to put my children first".

"By letting live the monster that killed their father" Sylvanas spat flatly, a sinister sarcasm subtly evident in her tone "You had made a promise not just to me, but to them that you wouldn't let that monster make their world unsafe". "It's not just that" Vereesa quickly intervened, "I was so blinded by my thirst for revenge… my hatred… my spite". Vereesa huffed with a pained sigh and continued "I almost threw away my future just to cling to my past".

She looked up and found a confused and irritated pair of red eyes glistening down towards her, but Sylvanas remained strangely silent. Her captor turned on her heel to face away from her captive, her hand raising and firmly landing on either side of her head in a sign of consideration. The Dark Lady gave an agitated sigh and bowed her head, showing almost a level of vulnerability to her sister that she'd not seen since her previous life.

"I wept for you, Vereesa".

Sylvanas folded her arms and gripped her biceps her body becoming sightly shrouded by her black cloak, her head bowed in thought. "I felt so much pain when you broke your promise" she explained in a clearly sorrowful voice, finally hiding none of her heartache from her the only family she has left. "I thought I had lost the only family I had left that day" she admitted, "At that moment, I knew I was… _really_ alone".

Even though her elder sister refused to show her pain, Vereesa could clearly sense it from her words and could understand her reasoning. "I knew you would hate me for it… but I knew I would regret it if I followed my hate" Vereesa explained, "I would never have betrayed you like that and I never will. I swear". A silence past between the pair of them, Vereesa allowing Sylvanas the time to consider the situation and hopefully release to return to her children.

Suddenly, Sylvanas realised something about everything that had been said between them; Vereesa's reasons for letting Garrosh live, for abandoning her to save her children, the entire plan that Vereesa both concocted and sabotaged of her own accord. Realising the potential truth of the situation, anger and anguish began to well inside Sylvanas' heart and mind once again. She slowly turned to face her sister and fixed a confused and almost lifeless stare on her.

"Your family" she began, "Refusing undeath" she continued, "Protecting your children" she added further. By this point, Vereesa could sense a dangerous conclusion from this behaviour and feared what may come next. What came next was a question that she had come to fear her sister asking ever she had been brought to this horrible place.

"What does _any_ of that have to do with Garrosh?"

Vereesa was silent, trying her hardest to come up with a satisfactory answer to this justified question. The silence lingered too long, however, and Sylvanas had come to assume that her sister was formulating a lie. Sylvanas didn't react beyond a small sigh and she waved her hand before her to dismiss her sister's thoughts.

Sylvanas's hand then slowly crept up the side of her hip and finally rested on the hilt of her blade, her face and heart as lifeless as they had ever been before. From witnessing this act and what it may represent, Vereesa's integrity began to break from sheer panic, forcing her to gasp and pant heavily from sheer, paralysing horror.

"You _hate_ me for what I am…" Sylvanas muttered in an eerily monotone voice, "You don't think I'm your sister… and we're not family". As Vereesa stared into her eyes, she noticed a pair of stray tears trailing along either side of her cheeks. It was a haunting visual for the young elf, the tears greatly contrasting with the dead eyes they spill forth from. "Your _whole_ plan… the false hope… sacrificing your lover's justice" she began again, her voice evidently cracking as her sorrow and her rage bubbled violently inside her, "All just to spite me".

"What?!" Vereesa blurted out in shock, intending to steer her sister's thoughts in a different direction whilst she still can. She lifted herself from the ground and tried her best to stand, but the shackles brought her back to her knees. The younger sibling exclaimed "Why?! I _loved_ my Rhonin! I _love_ my children and I still love _you,_ Sylvanas! I don't care what form you take! We are still family! I was horrified to learn when you became undead, but only because I thought you were lost to the scourge! I wish I could have helped you gain revenge on Arthas! I _would've_ become undead for you! But Garrosh needed to live! I-"

All through her sister's mad ravings spawned by her will to survive, possible for naught else, Sylvanas's senses had become ensnared by the brewing chaos in her mind. Her body shook with rage and a thirst for justice upon a traitor, and her mind was plagued by a thousand voices that beckoned her to achieve it. But despite what her mind said, her dark thoughts were challenged by the love for her sister, a love that had led her to betraying her in the first place. Sylvanas finally decided that this treachery will not occur a second time from this source.

She kneeled down before her sister as she continued to spout blessings and pleas for her life, immediately silencing Vereesa as the entire chamber followed suit. Vereesa soon noticed that Sylvanas' lip had begun bleeding from grinding her teeth against it in rage, blood spilling forth alongside her tears. Vereesa began to question if she was speaking to her sister any longer by this point, or if she had long been lost during her conclusive deduction. Perhaps a dark spirit feeding on her hatred spoke from her sister's mouth, or perhaps a second personality constructed from her misfortunes. Nevertheless, she felt guilt for her role in Sylvanas' apparent disappearance into madness.

"Please..." Vereesa finally began after the silence as tears began spilling from her eyes, "I have children". She didn't believe that this would save her, but she would not allow her anguish to overcome her as Sylvanas' own anguish had. But beyond her expectation, a sign of the sister she knew revealed itself in the shape of a sneer on Sylvanas' lip. With a loud 'SHING!', Sylvanas drew her blade by its hilt and held it in the air for her sister to see.

"A serial killer can have children" Sylvanas rebutted as Vereesa' eyes became transfixed on the silver blade of the sword, "And a serial killer would use them to get away with doing terrible things". Sylvanas then looked down and lifted her hand to her lip, wiping some of her own blood away as she slowly lapped away the rest of it, "They are still worthy of punishment for their crimes". Sylvanas then flipped the sword to face the blade upwards and pointed the tip towards Vereesa, concluding "A mass murderer certainly qualifies… wouldn't you agree?"

A thousands deaths… or one murder.

Vereesa chose wrong.


End file.
